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<title>Something’s still there (I’ll never let you go) by RobinWritesChirps</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463060">Something’s still there (I’ll never let you go)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinWritesChirps/pseuds/RobinWritesChirps'>RobinWritesChirps</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Friday - Team StarKid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Night Terrors</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:07:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,096</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463060</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinWritesChirps/pseuds/RobinWritesChirps</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Becky’s sleep hasn’t been too easy or restful for many years, but in Tom’s arms she finds some comfort even in the darkest of night. </p><p>Slightly fluffy hurt/comfort.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Becky Barnes/Tom Houston</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Something’s still there (I’ll never let you go)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He haunted her dreams at night. Even during the day, she had to persuade herself he truly was never coming back. She had to convince herself he had died that terrible day at her own shameful hands. Some days, the guilt and the terror of the past could be pushed down and she lived a semblance of a normal life again, she found happiness and pleasure in the mundane nothings of the everyday. Often, they were right at the surface but she put on a pretty mask to pretend otherwise.</p><p>At night, though.</p><p>She woke up panting. Every nightmare − when she found the wits to remember that it was, in fact, a nightmare − brought back the most vivid old memories. Sometimes that very night, the last she had seen of him and the shape of his curled up body bleeding dark red into the patch of packed snow that betrayed their fight might never leave the back of her eyelids the rest of her days. Often, plenty of other terrifying memories. That night hadn’t been the first time she had feared he would kill her, nor even the first time he had openly threatened it. It was just the time she had fought for her right to stay alive.</p><p>Tears were pearling at her eyes but she rubbed them clean with the back of her hand. Little by little, her breath came back. Stanley’s raised fist, the hate in his eyes, how he had despised her for so long and made sure she never forgot. He was gone, but the hatred lived on and on in everything she did. She checked her phone on the nightstand. Four in the morning. Early, but likely too late to fall back to sleep. Becky had never been a particularly good sleeper, not since high school. Every night on the edge in Stanley’s home when they were married, then living and breathing with the dread of the past rising again to get revenge. She leaned back against her pillow, stared at the night sky outside. With every blink of her eyes, the nightmare was slowly losing its grasp on her. She breathed.</p><p>Tom twitched in his sleep next to her. She breathed a little easier still. He didn’t snore, only the soothing low sound of his breath. Her very own white noise machine right in bed, she sometimes teased. He had been holding her the night before when they fell asleep but she must have been tossing around, for his arm now lay on the mattress between them. Very gently, Becky pulled it back around her waist and tucked herself a little closer − Tom had been an excellent sleeper. He twitched once more and pulled her closer, his face naturally nuzzling her neck without waking up.</p><p>Tom soothed her. He comforted her every day they were together, and especially every night. There was something so simple about him, a gentle soul right underneath the slightly rugged surface. Tom loved with a sincere heart, cared easily and plentifully. Not a man of words, but his actions spoke the tenderness of what was hidden within. Becky teased and amused him and his stiff ways, but only because of the spoken and unspoken promises of loving each other the best they could for as long as they would live again. In his arms, she felt safe again, for minutes or for hours.</p><p>His arm clenched her much tighter in a sudden move and his breath hitched. She frowned and glanced back. It was very dark, the darkest hours but dawn would be coming soon. She couldn’t see him well and touched his face, but Tom groaned and tore from the embrace. He was fretting tensely, fidgeting in his sleep.</p><p>"Tom," she whispered. "Tom, wake up."</p><p>Tossing and turning, his nightmare was getting worse, whimpers of pain that broke her heart. She touched his shoulder, tried to gently shake him awake but there was no breaking him out of himself. He was no stranger to night terrors. Much less frequent than hers, but this wasn’t a competition Becky was glad to win. Even one night of frightful memories was too many for any person.</p><p>"Ah, fuck!" He cried out and the outburst seemed to have woken him.</p><p>He was very alert, but still locked in the angst of his own mind and Becky tentatively touched him to ground him into his actual situation.</p><p>"Tom," she shushed him, "You’re okay, babe. You’re here with me."</p><p>He crashed into her arms and his body was heaving with every difficult breath. Becky combed fingers through his hair to soothe him, rubbed his back. She didn’t know what was troubling him. Perhaps the war, the atrocities he had seen and done. Perhaps Jane. Perhaps something else entirely. Tom never liked to say, so she had stopped asking. Not all that was painful needed to be talked about. Sometimes, it could just be pacified in silence.</p><p>"Becky," he sighed eventually when the shivers had run their course.</p><p>"I’m here," she said.</p><p>She twirled a curl of hair around her finger. It was thinning out a little, but still fluffy enough for her to play with, handsome enough to sway her heart. She loved that anyways. Knowing that she loved him and would love him through all remaining stages of his life, after missing such a large chunk already. It comforted her to have the rest of it. Tom nestled in her arms against her chest, the present made up for the past a little. His breath slowed down to match hers.</p><p>"Thank you," he said in a soft low voice.</p><p>She looked at him, a little moonlight in his face, not enough but a sketched out version of Tom before her eyes made real and vivid by the weight of him above her, the warm feel of his skin against hers, the breath at her neck.</p><p>"I’m sorry I woke you."</p><p>She smiled sadly.</p><p>"You didn’t."</p><p>"Mmh?"</p><p>Tom perked up to look at her, touched her cheek into the palm of his hand, but she shook her head.</p><p>"It’s nothing," she said. "Just hold me."</p><p>He looked at her and she thought she could see him squinting to see her better. She kissed him. He seemed surprised by that but took the kiss, lingered it a little before cuddling her again.</p><p>"A’ight," he said, "I can do that."</p><p>He held her close and his leg pressed between hers to feel even closer. She touched his hair. The sky was dark and blue and mysterious. They fell back to sleep.</p>
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